The benefit of Stadia is actually it's simplicity. It's about bringing in new gamers who may have come from console world, but don't have the Steam libraries, etc.
I wrote this in another post, but I think Stadia right now is for the game console user who only play 1 or 2 games. This makes for a lot of extra hardware and subscriptions just to play a game you like. Why not just rent the game as a service for as long as you want to play it? When hockey season starts every year I buy the new NHL for $60. Thats $5/mo. Why should i also buy PLaystation plus, and a hardware console just to play the game? it takes 10 minutes from turining on the tv, navigating the menus, getting into the game, finding someone to play online, etc. Chatting with people is really bad UX. Google can make all of this slicker. But the value prop needs to focus on the job at hand: playing a _specific_ game which happens to be your favorite game you play mostly. Thinking of it as some kind of a gaming platform is not the way.
With Stadia, you press one button and you're in the game 5s later. It also has deep integration, allowing friends list, voice chat, game invites, achievements, etc. Nvidia relies on Steam for those (Epic doesn't have most of it). That's just the surface level integration too. By having games integrate with Stadia's API, they can do other kinds of optimizations, like having simple optimized options, compares to Nvidia where you have to mess around with the settings like on PC.
If you've used both, it's night and day experience. Again obviously for you and me, we're used to PC gaming, but for average people wanting to play some AAA game, GFN is a complete no-go.
If I recall correctly, you have to do this once, and it can save your log-in details for next time.
> You & I may be gamers or computer users, but normal people don't want to deal with that shit.
Gamers are their target audience.
> By having games integrate with Stadia's API, they can do other kinds of optimizations, like having simple optimized options, compares to Nvidia where you have to mess around with the settings like on PC.
That's true. I've found it's sometimes necessary to change the settings, as the default graphical settings are far below what the hardware is capable of handling.
I'm sure nVidia could do something about that if they had the will to.
I don't quite agree on that one. If you already have a 2000$ gaming PC with a huge Steam catalog, Stadia is most definitely not targeting you. Nvidia is.
Stadia is targeting people who want to play the latest AAA game or EA sports game, without having to invest in a $500 console or $1000 PC. You just play $60 and you're good to go on your laptop you use for Facebook, or spend $100 to play on your TV. They're trying to expand the gaming pie, trying to get all those people who will play games on their phones because it's easy and low friction, but won't invest in high friction setups like a gaming PC.
At least that's my take on it.
I don't think so. If you have the hardware, there's little reason not to run it locally. They're both going after the same market, but with different sales models.
There's probably never going to be a subscription that gives you access to all the latest titles.
By considering Steam and Epic, you are already looking at this from the perspective of a platform. I am simply saying Stadia is better if the game you love is already there. NFL Madden is the latest Stadia promo right now. If most of your gaming time is consumed playing Madden, Stadia is probably the way to pay for it.
Because Stadia offers an inferior experience to local rendering. In particular, the way the video compression crushes all dark colors into a single shade of black. Plus, when Google kills Stadia in a year, you'll have lost the games you purchased and paid a subscription fee for.
I was excited to see Google make a game that would only be possible on Stadia, be it an MMO, races with hundreds of cars, or something more creative their designers could imagine. With their internal developers shut down, all that's left is more expensive, inferior quality versions of games I could play elsewhere.
Honestly, I'm sick of the limitations of traditional gaming. If that means some compression quality loss and being somewhat inferior to local rendering, then that's the price I'm willing to pay. Playing games is not one of the most important parts of my life, but with the amount of crap I've put up with dealing with flexibility and compatibility issues of a superior local rendering setup for modern games, you might think it was.
Why? Probably less latency/better quality with a PC.
Obviously it depends on how well your local hardware compares to Stadias server farm too.
The PC and Stadia versions are much better than the PS4 and Xbox One versions though - those do not run well at all.
I suspect the actual PS5 and Xbox Series X versions will be relatively similar to the PC/Stadia version, but they haven't been released yet - you can only play the last gen console versions via backwards compatibility.
edit: in what way does Steam or Epic expect you to understand how to use a “gaming PC”?
And as the other commenter points out, playing steam games via geforce now doesn't even require installing the steam app anyway, it's just an account link.
If you're just buying a single game, Stadia comes out ahead on price when you're only paying $60 for the game rather than Geforce Now where you pay $60 for the game and then a monthly fee for every month you're playing.
You seem to be using "non-gamer" as a synonym for "too inexperienced to use basic modern technology", which I don't think is a widespread problem outside of age ranges that didn't grow up with the internet. A much bigger group is surely just people that aren't that interested in video games. (Unless you think Stadia is actually going after the geriatric market, which seems short sighted.)
Too inexperienced to use technology is a strawman, the real comparison is do they prefer the benefit of the better UX more than they fear the amorphous dangers of lock-in. The answer is easily yes.
The problem isn’t just lock in. There are also less games on Stadia. The lack of available games is directly due to Google’s strategy of recreating yet another App Store.
Steam is free by the way, since I guess I didn’t point that out in my last post. You just have to buy the games, same as Stadia.
FWIW, the subscription is optional (with these perks [1]). You can also just buy the game you want to play and play it, no subscription needed.
Also, yes if you already have a huge Steam collection, the thought of buying games on a different store is not great, but I don't think Stadia is aimed at people with a PC gaming rig and 1000 steam games, it's aimed at people who don't have a gaming PC or console, and want to play the latest EA Sports or AAA game. Having to just pay 60$ is far better than paying 60$ + 500$ fo a console + waiting for shipping and installation.
The customer value add of anything on top of that is proving to be extremely thin. I used Now extensively in 2017, Luna extensively this year and Stadia briefly for Destiny 2 - Luna's experience isn't worse enough to provide any benefit to the Stadia lock-in model.
Stadia PM's should really consider focusing more on "Customer Obsession".
Local co-op is a thing in Luna, but I'm not sure about online multiplayer. But in GeForce Now I just used Steam and it worked flawlessly.
At least with xcloud & stadia's approach there's both subscription fees (passive income if people don't play), as well as the 30% store cut to offset some of the cost.
Although none of these are remotely close to being priced at break-even prices, so this is also likely going to end up with even more IAP-based games on these platforms if this ever "takes off" at all. Which, yuck. This is obviously a bait & switch strategy for everyone involved. Just dressed up as "subsidized during user acquisition" instead so they can feel less evil about it.